Kobe Bryant Timeline : Mamba Announces Retirement

30 Nov 2015 Kobe Bryant, who has helped the Lakers win five NBA championships over a 20-year career spent entirely in Los Angeles, announced on The Players' Tribune website that he will retire after 2015-16 season, writing that "this season is all I have left to give."

In a first-person story titled "Dear Basketball," the 37-year-old wrote in the form of a poem that the sport "gave a six-year-old boy his Laker dream/And I'll always love you for it."

"But I can't love you obsessively for much longer," Bryant wrote. "This season is all I have left to give. My heart can take the pounding. My mind can handle the grind but my body knows it's time to say goodbye."

"And that's OK. I'm ready to let you go."

Bryant is in the final year of a two-year deal that will pay him $25 million in 2015-16 and makes him the NBA's highest-paid player this season. The expiring contract and numerous injuries had led to widespread speculation that Bryant would retire after this season.

But in the morning, this was the most devastating news I heard regarding my interests in basketball.